IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/ohidic/2004-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Cherry-Picking Option in the U.S. Treasury Buyback Auctions

Author

Listed:
  • Han, Bing

    (Ohio State U)

  • Longstaff, Francis A.

    (University of California, Los Angeles)

  • Merrill, Craig

    (Brigham Young U)

Abstract

We study an important recent series of buyback auctions conducted by the U.S. Treasury in retiring $67.5 billion of its debt. We find that the Treasury was successful in buying back large amounts of illiquid debt while suffering only a small volatility-related market-impact cost. Although the Treasury had the option to cherry pick from among the bonds offered, we find that the Treasury was actually penalized for being spread too thin by including multiple bonds in a buyback auction. We find evidence that the Treasury may have attempted to minimize its interest expense rather than its buyback costs in these auctions. There is no evidence, however, that the Treasury used its timing option to exploit auction participants.

Suggested Citation

  • Han, Bing & Longstaff, Francis A. & Merrill, Craig, 2005. "The Cherry-Picking Option in the U.S. Treasury Buyback Auctions," Working Paper Series 2004-23, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2004-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cob.ohio-state.edu/fin/dice/papers/2004/2004-23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ashenfelter, Orley, 1989. "How Auctions Work for Wine and Art," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 23-36, Summer.
    2. Alan Beggs & Kathryn Graddy, 1997. "Declining Values and the Afternoon Effect: Evidence from Art Auctions," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 28(3), pages 544-565, Autumn.
    3. Babbel, David F. & Merrill, Craig B. & Meyer, Mark F. & de Villiers, Meiring, 2004. "The Effect of Transaction Size on Off-the-Run Treasury Prices," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 595-611, September.
    4. Sushil Bikhchandani & Chi-fu Huang, 1993. "The Economics of Treasury Securities Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(3), pages 117-134, Summer.
    5. Michael B. Gordy, 1999. "Hedging Winner'S Curse With Multiple Bids: Evidence From The Portuguese Treasury Bill Auction," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 448-465, August.
    6. Simon, David P., 1994. "Markups, quantity risk, and bidding strategies at treasury coupon auctions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 43-62, February.
    7. Matti Keloharju & Kjell G. Nyborg & Kristian Rydqvist, 2005. "Strategic Behavior and Underpricing in Uniform Price Auctions: Evidence from Finnish Treasury Auctions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1865-1902, August.
    8. Ashenfelter, Orley & Genesove, David, 1992. "Testing for Price Anomalies in Real-Estate Auctions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 501-505, May.
    9. Milgrom, Paul R & Weber, Robert J, 1982. "A Theory of Auctions and Competitive Bidding," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(5), pages 1089-1122, September.
    10. Keloharju, Matti & Nyborg, Kjell G. & Rydqvist, Kristian, 2004. "Strategic Behavior and Underpricing in Uniform Price Auctions: Evidence from Finnish Treasury Auctions," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt6v17p79w, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    11. Umlauf, Steven R., 1993. "An empirical study of the Mexican Treasury bill auction," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 313-340, June.
    12. McAfee R. Preston & Vincent Daniel, 1993. "The Declining Price Anomaly," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 191-212, June.
    13. Kjell G. Nyborg & Kristian Rydqvist & Suresh M. Sundaresan, 2002. "Bidder Behavior in Multiunit Auctions: Evidence from Swedish Treasury Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 394-424, April.
    14. Cammack, Elizabeth B, 1991. "Evidence on Bidding Strategies and the Information in Treasury Bill Auctions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(1), pages 100-130, February.
    15. Nyborg, Kjell G. & Sundaresan, Suresh, 1996. "Discriminatory versus uniform Treasury auctions: Evidence from when-issued transactions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 63-104, September.
    16. Spindt, Paul A. & Stolz, Richard W., 1992. "Are US treasury bills underpriced in the primary market?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 891-908, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Longstaff, Francis A & Han, Bing & Merrill, Craig, 2004. "Revenue Implications of Multi-Item Multi-Unit Auction Designs: Empirical Evidence from the U.S. Treasury Buyback Auctions," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt7344v866, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    2. Song, Zhaogang & Zhu, Haoxiang, 2018. "Quantitative easing auctions of Treasury bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(1), pages 103-124.
    3. Zhaogang Song & Haoxiang Zhu, 2014. "QE Auctions of Treasury Bonds," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2014-48, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Monostori, Zoltán, 2013. "Diszkriminatív áras és egyenáras aukciók [Discriminatory and uniform-price auctions]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1048-1074.
    5. Bindseil, Ulrich & Nyborg, Kjell G. & Strebulaev, Ilya A., 2002. "Bidding and performance in repo auctions: evidence from ECB open market operations," Working Paper Series 157, European Central Bank.
    6. Michał Krawczyk, 2009. "Demand functions in Polish Treasury auctions," Bank i Kredyt, Narodowy Bank Polski, vol. 40(4), pages 31-49.
    7. Matti Keloharju & Kjell G. Nyborg & Kristian Rydqvist, 2005. "Strategic Behavior and Underpricing in Uniform Price Auctions: Evidence from Finnish Treasury Auctions," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(4), pages 1865-1902, August.
    8. Saikat Nandi, 1997. "Treasury auctions: what do the recent models and results tell us?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 82(Q 4), pages 4-15.
    9. Herb, Patrick, 2025. "The treasury auction risk premium," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    10. Keloharju, Matti & Nyborg, Kjell G. & Rydqvist, Kristian, 2004. "Strategic Behavior and Underpricing in Uniform Price Auctions: Evidence from Finnish Treasury Auctions," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt6v17p79w, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    11. Nyborg, Kjell G. & Sundaresan, Suresh, 1996. "Discriminatory versus uniform Treasury auctions: Evidence from when-issued transactions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 63-104, September.
    12. Laurent Lamy, 2007. "Bidder Behavior in Multi-Unit Ascending Auctions : Evidence from Cross-Border Capacity Auctions," Working Papers 2007-27, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    13. Keunkwan Ryu & Gyung-Rok Kim & Seonghwan Oh, 2004. "Discriminatory vs Uniform Price Auction: Auction Revenue," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 539, Econometric Society.
    14. Ulrich Bindseil & Kjell G. Nyborg & Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2009. "Repo Auctions and the Market for Liquidity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(7), pages 1391-1421, October.
    15. Dentler, Alexander & Rossi, Enzo, 2024. "Public debt management announcements: A welfare-theoretic analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    16. Goldreich, David, 2003. "Underpricing in Discriminatory and Uniform-Price Treasury Auctions," CEPR Discussion Papers 4105, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Rocholl, Jörg, 2005. "Discriminatory auctions with seller discretion: evidence from German treasury auctions," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2005,15, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    18. Jean-Jacques Laffont, 1998. "Théorie des jeux et économie empirique : le cas des données issues d'enchères," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 132(1), pages 121-137.
    19. Xavier Vives, 2011. "Strategic Supply Function Competition With Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(6), pages 1919-1966, November.
    20. Laffont, Jean-Jacques, 1997. "Game theory and empirical economics: The case of auction data 1," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 1-35, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecl:ohidic:2004-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdohsus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.